| There are innumerable diseases and treatments in | | | | topographical codes. The Medical Diagnostic codes |
| the field of health and medicine. Without proper | | | | that are used include, ICD-9-CM (volumes 1and 2), |
| medical coding it would become impossible to do | | | | ICD-10, ICPC-2, NANDA, DSM-IV, SNOMED |
| medical billing at a fast pace and get proper claims | | | | (Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine) (for |
| reimbursed from the insurance companies. Medical | | | | psychiatric) and Mendelian inheritance for genetic |
| diagnostic coding is the same as medical | | | | diseases. Topographical codes are used to indicate |
| classification and it is the process of converting | | | | special locations in the body while the medications |
| various medical diagnoses etc into universal | | | | are represented by pharmaceutical codes. |
| medical code numbers. The details are usually | | | | Professional medical coders working in physician |
| taken from a variety of sources within the | | | | offices, hospital outpatient facilities, ambulatory |
| medical record, such as the transcription of the | | | | surgical centers can get certified credentials from |
| doctor's notes, laboratory results, radiological | | | | The American Academy of Professional Coders |
| results, and other such sources. | | | | (AAPC). The AAPC has 70000 members |
| What are the medical classifications used for? Well | | | | worldwide, of which over 51,000 have got the |
| they are used for different applications as follows, | | | | certification. |
| Disease analysis | | | | Medical coding service provider companies usually |
| Analysis of therapeutic actions | | | | follow all regulations set by AMA (American |
| Reimbursements of medical bills | | | | Medical Association) and CMS (Centre for Medicaid |
| Surveillance of epidemic breakouts | | | | and Medicare Services). Medical diagnostic coding |
| Decision support systems | | | | procedures are done using different types of |
| Besides diagnostic codes the other codes are | | | | medical coding software like EncoderPro, |
| procedural codes, pharmaceutical codes and | | | | FLashcode and CodeLink. |